Stop! Thief!

The Festive Season is upon us. Smiles opening the presents. We have been busy choosing and shopping.

Very often online. Internet shopping is growing apace, over 16% last year, 2015, expected to be over 14% growth this year. About 77% of Internet users are shopping online.

So, it is not surprising that online crime is joining in. In the UK alone, victims of online crime lost over £16m to cyber crooks. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, with amazing offers of deep discounts.

But don’t be mesmerised by these offers, some are too good to be true. If they are too good to be true, chances are they are not true! They may be from cyber crooks trying to get to your wallet, steal your card details, or even worse, steal your identity!

These two days are not the only ones targeted by the fraudsters. They are laying in waiting to pounce on last minute Christmas shoppers.

Digital crooks anticipate the online shopping spree and time their action in this festive period. They swamp the market with phishing emails, malicious links and online attacks and scams.

Phishing emails are among the most obvious threats. They make the message look very legitimate to instil confidence, with a similar look and feel to the legitimate business; the sting in the tail is that they will ask your PIN number or other sensitive information for some made-up reason that they make sound quite legitimate.

There are also fake websites that look almost like the real one. You ‘buy’ something on one of them, you have given your credit card details and your money to a crook.

Another favourite is special offers received via social media; click on the link and it will unleash malware on your phone, tablet or PC.

But how to fight the crooks?

Never click on a suspicious link.

If the email look slightly suspicious and you are curious, don’t. Even if you know the sender; his/her mail box may have been hacked.